Dalip Singh Saund
Congressman From India

I. BEGINNINGS IN INDIA

It was ten-thirty on the evening of November 24, 1957, when the plane from
Rangoon, Burma, landed on the airport of Calcutta, India. I had strange
feelings of joy and anticipation for I was about to set foot on the soil of
India, the land of my birth, after an absence of thirty-seven years. As the
plane came to a stop, I could see that a large crowd had gathered. When my
wife, my daughter, and I stepped off the plane, photographers' flash bulbs
popped and we could hear the grinding of the movie cameras. Hundreds of people
were milling about us with flower garlands in their hands. The first person to
reach and embrace me was my bearded younger brother.

It was a really grand home-coming reception and welcome for a former
son of India, now a member of the United States Congress, and a joyous occasion
for me and my family. We were deeply touched and sincerely overwhelmed by the
spirited and enthusiastic ovation given us by the crowd at the airport.

Our plane was scheduled to arrive at four-forty in the afternoon, but we
were six hours late. Later we learned that from four in the afternoon till dark
the streets of Calcutta had been lined with people, many of them young
students, waiting to welcome us.

Throughout our three-day stay in Calcutta we were guests at a score or
more receptions given by leaders of civic and business groups, and we even
lunched with the governor of Bengal in the old historic Viceregal Palace of
India. Such was the occasion of my arrival in the land of my birth after a
long, happy, and rewarding stay in the United States of America.

I was particularly eager to visit the small village in the state of
Punjab where I was born and meet and talk of old times together with the few
surviving relatives and friends of childhood days. But one person who had loved
me the most and whom I would have wanted above all else to meet was no more. My
mother had died ten years previously. I have always carried the memory of my
last conversation with her in the summer of 1920. The picture of my mother
sitting on a low stool, saying good-by to me, trying bravely to suppress her
tears, came often to my mind. Her last words to me were:
"Son, make friends everywhere and no enemies."

My mother was a very devout and religious person, but she had no formal
education. Indeed, she could not read or write her own name. This was also true
of my father. My parents had been brought up in an age when India had passed
into a new era, an era of British colonialism. In early times, history tells us
there was a provision in the tax system of the country requiring each village
to retain enough funds from the land revenue to hire a schoolteacher to
instruct the village youth. But with the advent of British rule, the system of
taxation was centralized and there was no money left for education. Thus, there
were no schools in the villages in the years when my parents were growing up.

By the time I reached school age, my father and my two uncles had
become comparatively wealthy as government contractors constructing canals and
other public works, and they, as private citizens, had endowed a small one-room
schoolhouse. They had also offered to pay the salary of a village
schoolmaster. Thus the children of Chhajalwadi had the opportunity for primary
education.

My father and mother may have been illiterate, but they were
nonetheless well versed in the ancient traditions and culture of India. My
mother could recite many long and significant passages from the old hymns and
songs of Indian and Sikh literature. Her favorite verse, which I heard many
times and which became a part of my teaching, may be roughly translated thus:

There is only one God and He is the source of all Light and Life. From
one source spring all beings. We are children of one Father. How can one be
high and another low? Who is good and who is bad?

Myself, I impose no fear on anyone, I am afraid of no one; when I fully
understand the meaning of such behavior, then shall I become a true
philosopher.

My parents, not having had the advantages of education, shared one
single, burning ambition to provide their children with the best school and
college education possible. The only time I can recall my father giving me a
scolding or a spanking was when I once hid in a cotton field and refused to go
to school at the village a half mile away. I was only ten when my father died,
and my memories of him are dim. But his burning interest in our education
stayed bright in my mind.

My early life in the village was very simple. My mother had raised a
family of seven children, four boys and three girls. There were no nurses or
doctors in the village and all she knew of hygiene, the treatment and care of
children's diseases and safeguards from the epidemics was what she had absorbed
from her own mother and the neighbors around the village.

The rules of conduct of old Hindu society have come down to the village
people through word of mouth and the teachings of the village priests. The
rules of hygiene were learned and practiced with the utmost care. As a child I
was taught always to wash my hands before eating and to wash my hands and mouth
after each meal. We were taught---and it was rigidly enforced---to brush our teeth
every morning with a twig from the kikar tree. We chewed the twig, brushed our
teeth with its flavory juice, and then threw it away. We were told that men
were judged by their conduct and their speech. A young man should never talk
loudly before his parents and elders. When walking, always follow your elders,
teachers, and preachers.

How effective and how lasting the teachings of childhood are was
brought home to me two years ago during my travels around the world. My wife,
my daughter, and I were dinner guests at the American College in Jerusalem,
Lebanon, on Christmas Eve, 1957. Among our hosts were two Catholic
priests. They motioned me into the dining hall ahead of them, but I stood my
ground. I said, "No, I cannot precede a man of religion." I could not. The
rules and teachings of ancient Hindu society forbid it and I could not deny
those rules I had learned as a child.

We were taught to salute and to bow our heads every time we met a man
of religion, a teacher, or an elderly person. At home, every evening we
listened to prayers sung from memory by either my father or my mother. Then,
before going to bed, we said our own prayers. They were always couched in song,
and were thus pleasant to recite and easy to remember.

As children we always had plenty to eat. There was not much variety,
but Mother was an excellent cook. She could fry turnips, or peas, or
cauliflower in butter with curry powder and spices, and I must say I have never
tasted anything so rich and marvelous, not even in the many wonderful
restaurants and hotels that I have visited throughout the world. Our food
consisted mostly of vegetables and greens, plenty of milk, buttermilk, curdled
milk, and butter. In the northern part of India rice is not the staple food,
but is served only on special occasions, and is considered a delicacy.

One of the staples of the diet in Punjab is a pancake called rotee. My
mother used to make the most delicious rotees I have ever tasted. Other members
of the family and children were always fed first before Mother would eat her
meal, and to this day I cannot understand the logic of Mother always eating the
stale, one-day-old rotees. In answer to my question she said, "Son, we cannot
waste food. These rotees, when they are warmed, are just as good and fresh, and
Mother likes to eat them." But why eat the stale of yesterday and make the
leftovers of today stale for tomorrow I could never understand.

My family ate meat. The only kind of meat available was goat meat and
poultry, but meat was a special dish. We had it once a month on the average. My
mother never tasted meat in her life, and yet she could cook it, and cook it
well, for the rest of the family.

Sugar cane was a special favorite with us. In the wintertime, when
sugar cane was in season, I remember that as boys we would go and sit in the
middle of the sugar-cane field, cut the sugar cane, knock off the straw, peel
it with our teeth, and chew it. It was a most marvelous and delicious pastime.

My family was exceptionally fortunate in having a small grove of trees
on our land. We had tangerines, oranges, grapefruit--none of the Arizona,
California, and Florida variety, but pomelos of the Far East and India
variety. I loved going to the grove and picking the ripe fruit fresh from the
trees. Fresh fruit was a real delicacy in that part of the world, for on the
whole such fruit was not available to the villagers of Punjab. We had a few
lime trees in our garden and I recall seeing people walk several miles to get a
lime to use for medicinal purposes. The mango is the one fruit common to just
about all parts of India, and farmers grow mangoes on their farms for their own
use. As boys, I remember, we used to sit under a mango tree and eat mangoes by
the bushel. Then, quite a number of farmers grew a few vines of cantaloupes and
watermelons. We used to pick the cantaloupes fully ripe and chill them by
letting them float in the cool stream of fresh well water as it was being
pumped from the wells for irrigation. There was no refrigeration; no ice was
available in the village, and I recall that one of our special delights was to
go and buy some ice from the railroad train as it stopped at the station a few
miles away.

Such was the village life of India, where I was reared by an unlettered
but devoted and loving mother who nonetheless knew the art of raising
children. My mother was the only doctor or dentist I knew. Her success may be
judged by the fact that I was twenty-nine years old when I first had to sit in
a dentist's chair.

It has been said that in India teachers and preachers will never
starve. It is quite literally true, and as a tradition goes back to the ancient
days of India's history, after the exodus of the Aryans from central Asia to
the plains of India. In the elaborate caste system of the Hindus the top caste
were the Brahmans, who became the teachers and preachers of the Hindu
society. And, because of their superior learning and understanding of the
history and literature of India, prominent Brahmans occupied responsible
positions of power in government as the ministers of kings and emperors. In the
rules of caste the early leaders of India made it an edict that no Brahman
should ever possess any personal or real property. For that reason the needs
and personal wants of the Brahman, the teacher, and the preacher, have always
received precedence in the Hindu way of life. If a teacher or a preacher comes
to a villager's home, the villager will afford him the best accommodations in
the household and see that the visitor is served first, and with the best
possible fare. A story is told of a Catholic friar who was traveling in
northern India. During a hot summer day this missionary for Christ became
tired, and spreading his sheet, lay down to rest under a banyan tree a mile
outside the village. A little girl saw the friar lying in the shade of the tree
and told her mother. The mother immediately sent the girl with a jug of fresh,
cool water and some fresh fruit in a basket. When, after a few hours of restful
sleep, the tired friar awoke, he saw a little girl swinging a small fan over
him and watching the basket of fruit and the jug of fresh water. The little
girl's mother did not inquire what the religion of the stranger was. It was her
dharma, her religious duty, to give the preacher the gift of fruit and fresh,
cold water and to send her daughter to fan him against the heat of the day.

Sister Nivedeta, Mrs. Margaret Noble, who wrote several books on Indian
culture and religion, made her home in the native quarters of Calcutta while
making a study of India's past. In recounting her experiences, she says that
when she first arrived in Calcutta, she would find a basket of fruit and a jug
of fresh, cold milk in front of her door each morning, and she never found out
who the donor was. What she did not know was that it was the dharma of the
neighbors to provide for the simple necessities of the student. It did not
matter whether or not she was their friend or what her opinions concerning
their culture might be. It mattered only that she was a student, and it was
therefore their religious duty to take care of her.

How many other simple customs and taboos in the quiet life of northern
India derive their origin from the basic hygienic and social needs of the
community. I remember being taught as a child that if a man ever defiled the
shade under a tree, the devil would possess him. So it is that shade trees
along India's roads and thoroughfares furnish a clean place of rest for weary
travelers seeking shelter from the hot sun. Often we used to see devout,
religious people going about with brooms to sweep the space under the trees for
travelers and strangers to use for rest and relaxation. During the afternoon
hours it was the custom of the elders of the village to gather under the banyan
trees and discuss ancient philosophy, religion, and modern politics. I remember
eavesdropping on the elders, and occasionally someone would start reciting and
singing the ancient hymns.

After one of these sessions an elderly uncle of mine told me, "Son, you
can drink your own cow's milk one hundred miles away from the village."
Naturally I questioned this. "How can you drink your own cow's milk a hundred
miles away from the village?" I asked. "The milk would turn sour within a few
hours and it would take at least ten days to travel one hundred miles."

"Son", my old uncle answered me, "when a man passing through your
village from a hundred miles away is thirsty and tired, you invite him to your
home and offer him a glass of milk. He will drink your milk and enjoy it and
thank you. Then, when someday you are traveling in his village, he will offer
you a glass of milk there. You will in truth be drinking your own cow's milk."

I remember another time being angry at a classmate. One of the village
elders overheard me muttering and cursing. The old headman listened to me for a
while and then said, "Son, come here; I want to show you something." I followed
him as he climbed up a few steps onto the platform of a well and said, "Son,
sit here, look down into this well, and repeat what I say." I did. "Son say
"Good morning, sir, how are you this bright day?" The well echoed back, "Good
morning, sir, how are you this bright day?" Then the headman said, "Say, `You
damn fool, you look silly and crazy to me.'" I repeated the same and the echo
came back, repeating my words. The headman said, "Son, that is how, when you
grow up, you will find the world to be. In contact with people you will hear
your own echo as you heard it from this well."

How many times during my life have I regretted that I failed to
remember the remarks of the old headman in my village. Often we court
difficulties and troubles and create animosities by making gratuitous and
unkind remarks about others. Invariably the world will send the same back to us
as the well did to that little boy in Punjab, India.

My family was very fond of fine Arabian horses and we had several good
riding horses in our stable. My father's favorite was the blue mare. He used to
take special and tender care of her at all times and would spend several hours
every day keeping her and the other horses clean and brushed and in good
trim. My brother, who was five years older than I, was a very good horseman. He
used to ride Father's favorite blue mare bareback and I delighted in riding
behind him holding tight around his waist. One afternoon we were riding out in
the fields when I said, "Brother, why don't you do what Father always does and
make the horse gallop? Hit her with the spurs and let the reins loose." He did,
and though he was a good horseman he was not so heavy as Father, and when I
lost my balance and pulled him down, we both fell. I fell on his leg and it
broke at the thigh. He groaned in pain. "I can't sit up," he said.

I ran home as fast as I could. It was late afternoon and my father had
just returned from the city of Amritsar. He took two helpers with him and
together they carried my brother back to the house. There, my father, all by
himself, set the broken leg, applied a splint, and tied it. The next day a
surgeon and physician, Dr. Satyapal, was summoned from Amritsar. He checked my
brother's leg, the bandage, and the splint, and pronounced it an excellent
piece of bonesetting and said that nothing need be changed or disturbed. My
brother recovered successfully and in his school years won several
championships in quarter and half-mile races and became a better-than-average
soccer and cricket player. At no time did he show any sign of weakness in that
broken leg.

My father had learned the art of bonesetting from one of the elders of
the village. He used to mend the broken limbs not only of human beings, but
animals, and used neither chloroform nor sedative. How he managed to set the
leg of a thirteen-year-old child I do not know, but it was done.

I was not altogether a model boy in my younger years. I had my share of
quarrels and fights and disappointments in the life of the village. After
finishing primary school, my cousins and I were all sent to the boarding school
in Amritsar, sixteen miles away, for our secondary school education. I was
eight years of age and came back to the village for the summer vacation. During
the warm summer evenings the boys of the village used to go out into the plowed
fields to play. One of the games we played involved setting up goals by piling
up clods in piles ten feet apart. The teams would line up facing each other. A
player would then go over to the opposing side holding his breath and repeat
loudly, "Kabadi, kabadi." He could go in and wander among and chase any member
of the opposing team, and if he touched one of them, the man was out. But he
had to continue holding his breath and keep on saying "kabadi" loudly, and he
had to return to his own side before running out of breath. If he lost his
breath or stopped saying "kabadi," a player on the opposite side could tag him
out by just touching him.

I wanted very much to play with the village boys. Grudgingly they let
me join, but they resented my attitude and my dress, for I wore clean white
clothes, and, as a student, I appeared altogether different from the rest of
the boys. So no matter how much I wanted to be liked by the other boys, they
all picked on me. I was shoved aside by one, thrown down by another. They used
every excuse to get at me. By the time the evening was over I was bruised, my
clothes were soiled and torn, and my spirit was crushed, and I went home crying
to my mother. I put my arms around her neck, sobbing.

"Son, tell me what happened?" she asked. I told her, and she pushed me away,
saying, "Son, you went out to play with boys of your own age and came home
crying. Let that be the first and the last time. When you go out to play with
other boys, you've got to take care of yourself. if you can't, just stay away."

During World War I Great Britain had promised the people of India a
measure of self-government at the conclusion of the war as a reward for their
wartime loyalty to the Empire. As a consequence, leaders of the Indian
nationalist movement, represented by the Indian National Congress, suspended
their agitation for self-rule and actively participated in the war effort. The
soldiers of India fought heroically in all war theaters in defense of the
Empire.

At the conclusion of the hostilities, the government of David Lloyd
George changed its attitude toward the Indian Nationalists, and instead of
fulfilling its promise of self-government for India, instituted a campaign to
suppress the nationalist movement. This was coincident to similar actions taken
in other parts of the Empire, such as Palestine and Ireland.

The Viceroy of India, without even bothering to consult the Indian
members of the central legislature, by his sole authority promulgated and
certified into law what was known as the Rowlatt Acts. These Acts not only
curbed the freedom of the press but also suspended the right of free assembly
throughout India as a precaution against the rising nationalist
movement. Indian political leaders and the people generally looked on the Acts
as an outrage against their national honor. Protest meetings were held
throughout the country and resolutions were passed condemning the action of the
British Government and the Viceroy.

At this time a hitherto little-known advocate of Indian independence,
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, came to the forefront of the Indian nationalist
struggle. He had won some attention as a leader of the Indians in South Africa
in their protest against discrimination by the government of South Africa.

It is the custom in India and has been for centuries for the people to
observe a national day of mourning--say, for example, on the occasion of the
death of a well-loved prince or king--by holding an all-day fast. It was
Gandhi's idea to use this ancient custom as a vehicle of protest and he
therefore called upon the people of India to observe Sunday, April 6, 1919, as
a day of national mourning for the people of India. He asked the people to
assemble peaceably and pass resolutions protesting the passage of the Rowlatt
Acts. As a result meetings were held throughout India and the people gathered
to hear speeches by their political leaders protesting the repressive measures
of the British Government. In some places, alas, there was violence. The nearby
city, Amritsar, was one such place.

Fearing a rising of the nationalist movement under the leadership of
two of the town's leading citizens, one a medical doctor, the other a
distinguished scholar, the resident British commissioner in Amritsar ordered
these two men arbitrarily arrested. When news of the arrest spread through the
town, a large mob assembled in protest and started marching toward the
commissioner's residence. While it was crossing the bridge over the railroad,
the mob was fired on by the police under the orders of the British
superintendent of police. Several persons were killed. The people immediately
became violent and scattered to different parts of the town. They burned the
British buildings and murdered the two resident English managers of the two
English banks in the city. The commissioner forthwith proclaimed martial law in
the city.

Next Sunday, April 18, was the Baisakhi day in India, a day equivalent
to New Year's Day in the Western World. On this day, as was customary, people
from the surrounding villages assembled in Amritsar. The city was the home of
the Sikhs and had the golden temple and was therefore a place of pilgrimage. So
on this day in 1919 thousands of people had gathered in Amritsar. As it
happened the political leaders of the Indian nationalist movement announced
that on this very same day there would be a public mass meeting in Jallianwalla
Bagh, an open enclosure in the heart of the city. When this became known to the
English general in charge of the area, he banned the meeting. Notices were
posted throughout Amritsar and the general's proclamations were marked by the
beating of the drums in the streets.

The meeting was held in spite of the order of the general, and when he
heard about it, he left his headquarters a few miles outside of the city limits
with a contingent of soldiers armed with rifles. Some fifteen thousand unarmed
people were gathered together, listening to the speeches. The general
immediately ordered a volley of rifle fire into the throng. The crowd began to
disperse and run for shelter. In the confusion and rush to get away, hundreds
of people fell or were pushed into two low wells in the area. Those who tried
to climb out of the enclosure over a wall were shot down as the general
directed the fire wherever the crowd was the thickest. Seven hundred and fifty
people were killed and several thousand wounded.

In the subsequent investigation of this incident, which became known as
the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre, the general appeared before Lord Hunter's
investigating committee and was asked the question, "Why did you start
shooting?"

"I wanted to disperse the mob because they had defied my order."

"Why did you continue shooting when the mob started to disperse?"

"I wanted to show them the might of British rule," the general replied.

"When did you stop shooting?"

"When my ammunition ran out."

Thanks to the vigilance of the British censors, news of the
Jallianwalla Bagh massacre took several weeks to reach England and other parts
of the world.

The reaction in the United Kingdom itself was very strange. A leading
English newspaper initiated a subscription for a fund to be awarded to the
general. Subsequently, the general was retired from service in the British Army
of India on full pension to be paid out of the taxes collected from the people
whom he had so mercilessly and unjustifiably murdered. When he reached England,
he was awarded the equivalent of $50,000 in cash and a jeweled sword from the
money collected through the newspaper's subscription in recognition of his
gallantry and bravery in behalf of the Empire.

The people of India were deeply shocked. It was said that the
Jallianwalla Bagh massacre had stirred the big heart of India to a boiling
point. In protest, even the moderates who had hitherto been friendly toward the
British revolted against British rule in India. Among them was Sir Rabindranath
Tagore, one of the great poets of India. He had been knighted previously by the
King for his loyalty to the Empire and his accomplishments as a poet and
writer. He immediately resigned his knighthood and returned all the orders he had
received from the King and the Empire. Others in high places in the government
of India resigned their positions and the nationalist movement took on a truly
united national flavor. Such great and famous Indian lawyers as C. R. Das in
Bengal and Pandit Motilal New Nehru, the late father of the present Prime
Minister of India, gave up their law practices, donated their entire properties
to the cause of Indian nationalism, and joined the movement of Mahatma
Gandhi. Motilal Nehru's palatial home became the headquarters of the Indian
National Congress, and Nehru, Sr., himself traveled throughout India, urging
people to join the nationalist cause.

Gandhi became the popular hero of the Indian people and it was they who
gave him the unofficial title of Mahatma, or the Great Soul. He protested
against being called Mahatma, but the people were not to be denied, and the cry
of nationalists all over the country became "Mahatma Gandhiji kee
jai---Long Live Mahatma Gandhi!"

Mahatma Gandhi was born of wealthy parents in the western part of
India. His father was the prime minister of a native state. He was educated in
India and later finished his studies and was admitted to the bar in the Inner
Temple of London. He practiced law briefly in India and then went to South
Africa, where he became famous as a leader of his people against the
discrimination of the British Government of South Africa. In 1902 Gandhi
announced to the world that he was going to espouse poverty. He gave all his
worldly possessions to charity and vowed that from then on he was going to live
as simple a life as the poorest of his people. He dressed in cheap garments and
slept on the floor. He wanted to identify himself with the humblest of his own
people.

Mahatma Gandhi was a great leader of men and the secret of his
greatness lay in the fact that through a long period of self-discipline he had
completely mastered himself and his passions. Throughout his long period as
leader of the Indian nationalist movement he was never known to have uttered
one word of anger or shown any resentment or passion in any way.

When he came to the forefront of the Indian political movement, he gave
to the people of India a new method of achieving their political
independence. He called his movement passive resistance and non-cooperation
with the British Government of India. He had been a student of Thoreau and had
corresponded during his early years with Count Tolstoy. Thoreau once wrote that
when the officer has resigned his office and the subject has refused
allegiance, revolution is accomplished. That is exactly what Mahatma Gandhi
started to do in India. The emphasis in Mahatma Gandhi's movement was on
self-discipline and nonviolence under all circumstances. As he himself once
said: "When nonviolence teaches us to love our enemies by nonviolent
non-cooperation, we seek to conquer the wrath of English administrators and
their supporters. We must love them and pray to God that they might have wisdom
to see what appears to us to be their error. It must be the prayer of the
strong and not of the weak. In our strength must we humble ourselves before our
Maker. In the moment of our trials let me declare my faith. I believe in loving
my enemies. I believe in the power of suffering to melt the stoniest heart. We
must by our conduct demonstrate to every Englishman that he is as safe in the
remotest corner of India as he professes to feel behind the machine gun. There
is only one God for us all, and He is a God of love and truth. I do not hate an
Englishman. I have spoken much against his institutions, especially the one he
has set up in India. But you must not mistake my condemnation of the system for
that of the man. My religion requires me to love him as I love myself. I have
no interest in living except to prove this faith in me. I would deny God if I
do not attempt to prove it at this critical moment."

At one time an English missionary put this question to Mahatma Gandhi:
"Mr. Gandhi, where did you receive your inspiration for your movement of
passive resistance? " Without any hesitation he replied: "By reading the
Sermon on the Mount."

The enemies of Indian nationalism branded Mahatma Gandhi's movement as
visionary. He was called a charlatan, a hypocrite, an unscrupulous educator,
and a disguised autocrat. The vast number of his followers were branded as dumb
cattle.

The British Government of India fought the rising tide of Indian
nationalism with harsh and bitter countermeasures. Thousands of Gandhi's
followers, among them the most educated and highly respected citizens of India,
were jailed and other thousands were unmercifully flogged. In some cases they
were even shot for no other offense than that of wearing the coarse and
hand-spun Gandhi cap and singing the Indian national hymn. But in spite of all
the oppressive measures used by the British Government of India, Mahatma
Gandhi's influence grew until the masses of India were thoroughly imbued with
the spirit of nationalism and determined to follow their leader under his
principles of nonviolent noncooperation. Mahatma Gandhi had set as his goal the
development in the people of India of a spirit of self-discipline and
sacrifice. When this had been achieved he planned to call upon them to refuse
to obey the British laws and refuse to pay taxes. In that way would he bring
the British Government of India to a standstill and win his goal of achieving
national independence.

Gandhi's theory is illustrated by an incident that grew out of the days
of martial law in Amritsar in 1919. At that time the commanding officer ordered
that all persons passing through a certain alley, where an Englishwoman once
had been assaulted by a furious mob, should be made to crawl on their
bellies. Those living in the neighborhood had submitted to this humiliation at
the point of British bayonets.

When Mahatma Gandhi visited Amritsar he told the people:
"You Punjabis with your tall, muscular bodies, you who call yourselves brave,
submitted to this soul-degrading order. I am a small man and my physique is
very weak. I weigh less than a hundred pounds. But there is no power in this
world that can make me crawl on my belly. The general's soldiers could have
bound my body in chains and put me in jail, or with their swords they could
have taken my life, but if they had ordered me to crawl on my belly, I would
have said, `Oh, foolish men, don't you see God has given me two feet to walk
upon? Why shall I crawl on my belly?'" Thus Gandhi drew the distinction between
the coward and the passive resister. The coward submits to force through fear,
while the passive resister submits to force under protest.

In 1930 Mahatma Gandhi staged his famous salt march to the sea. Even
though there were several natural deposits of salt in the mountains of India
and India is surrounded on three sides by ocean, no one except the British
Government itself was permitted to make any salt. In fact, salt was brought to
India from the mines of Manchester, England, as ships' ballast. The ships went
from India to England loaded with raw materials; on the way back they would
bring only manufactured materials and salt served as ballast. Salt thus became
a monopoly of the British Government, and yet the people of India were so poor
they could not afford to buy enough salt for their needs. It was a cruel
oppression that all people could understand. So Mahatma Gandhi announced that
he was going to break that law. To do it, he was going to march to the sea and
make a pinch of salt by boiling a bucket of water.

Mahatma Gandhi led a pilgrimage on foot over two hundred miles to the
sea, preaching his message on the way. Eventually he reached Bombay and the
seashore. He walked to the edge of the water, dipped up a bucket of water,
boiled it, and made a pinch of salt, thus defying the British law. It was a
signal for people all over India to disobey the established British salt laws.

Gandhi's aim was to remove from the minds of his people the terror of
British rule. He knew once he had punctured the bubble of John Bull's bluff in
India, half the battle would be won. In any event, his appeal to the people of
India was immediate and universal, and I, along with most of my fellow
students, became an ardent and active follower. Like them, I vowed to obey
Gandhi's edict and never accept any service in the British Government of
India.

I must confess that as late as 1917, when I was a junior in college,
despite my interest in political affairs, my knowledge of the United States of
America was next to nothing. I knew little beyond the fact that Washington,
D.C., was the capital. The British rulers of my country had thought it highly
important that English history be thoroughly taught the youth of India, but
they did not think it important to pay any great attention to the American
Revolution--a revolution which, in my opinion, has done more to bring joy and
dignity into the lives of men than anything that has happened before or since
in recorded history.

After the United States had joined the allies in World War I the
newspapers of India began to carry the speeches of Woodrow Wilson, and I soon
became a profound admirer of the American war president. I read his speeches
over and over and over again, until I could literally repeat them from
memory. His inspiring ideas and ideals--"make the world safe for democracy",
"the war to end war," and "self-determination for all peoples"--appealed to my
young heart. I hung a picture of Woodrow Wilson in my study, and through him I
became acquainted with another great American war president, Abraham
Lincoln. Indeed, I once made an overnight railroad trip to the University of
Punjab to get two books on Abraham Lincoln and American history. I read the
life story of that great man and studied his writings. Americans may perhaps
take the Gettysburg Address for granted. To a young Indian college student it
was a revelation and inspiration. It remains so to this day.

I was a student at the Prince of Wales College at Jammu in 1919 when
the Big Four were conducting the Conference of Versailles. One of the topics of
our college debating group was: "Would Wilson succeed with his 14 Points?" I,
along with many of my friends, could not believe that the British would be
willing to consent to the principle of "Freedom of the seas" nor Wilson's
desire for "Open covenants, openly arrived at."

In that period another famous American's life came into focus. Theodore
Roosevelt died and shortly afterward I came across a review of his life story
in an illustrated London magazine. I was charmed by the personality of this
colorful man and deeply impressed by his courage and determination to overcome
all obstacles to achieve success.

One story impressed me particularly. In the course of an address to a
group of high-school students, he remarked that he had seen a word on the door
of the auditorium when he entered that could be a guide to their lives.

The students looked at the door and saw the word "Pull," and thought
that was the word to which he referred. "No," said Roosevelt, "I mean the word
`Push' which is on the other side." These scraps and pieces about American life
and American leaders, gleaned from books, newspapers, and magazines, left a
deep impression on me. But Lincoln's words in the Gettysburg Address,
"Government of the people, by the people, and for the people," had particular
meaning. India at that time had no jury trial and the practice of habeas corpus
did not exist. Under British rule anyone could be taken into custody and his
whereabouts kept secret from relatives and friends.

Nor was there such a thing as free elections. In fact, Indians had no
voice in the selection of local, state, or national officials. Lincoln changed
the entire course of my life. Defiant of the wishes of my parents, who wanted
me to join the service of the British Government in India, I said to myself and
to them, I must go to the United States of America, come what may. I took great
pains to get hold of every possible book from which I could learn something of
the history and the government of the United States.

Gradually my family became reconciled to my desire to go to
America. Even so, after I graduated from the University of Punjab with a
B. A. degree in mathematics, I had to wait for several months in Chhajalwadi
for my passport to clear. During that time I busied myself with a number of
small projects in the village. One of them involved the primary school where I
had studied as a boy. As a primary school it went only up to the fifth grade. I
urged my uncle to build new, larger quarters for the school and, with the help
of the leaders in the community, I prepared letters and petitions to the
district education board of Amritsar in an effort to convert it from a primary
school of five grades to a middle school of eight grades. That application was
accepted and granted. My uncle donated the building, and before I left India I
had the great satisfaction of seeing the sixth grade already started in the
school. Now it is a well-established middle school.

I also concerned myself with trees. Travel between the villages of
India is done mostly on foot, or was in my day, and for the weary travelers
shade trees at the crossroads and other locations provided a welcome haven from
the hot sun. And from ancient days it has been considered a virtue for people
to plant shade trees on the paths of travel in the country.

While waiting for my passport I became very much impressed by a
middle-aged man who used to spend all his time gathering tiny seedlings and
planting them along the various roads outside the village. This man's only son
had left home a few years before and he had never heard from him, and in
his loneliness he sought comfort in planting trees. I used to see him carrying
water on his shoulders several miles in order to nurture his growing seedlings.

Since I was young and strong and possessed of the urge to do some good,
I began to follow his example. I was able to plant a number of trees in places
some distance from the village. Like the old man I used to enjoy carrying water
to my seedlings to get them started. I learned later that some of those trees
were kept growing because my mother nurtured them after I had left for America.

Almost all Indian villages in those days suffered from the oppression
of the moneylenders. Villagers finding themselves in financial difficulties
would borrow money from the village moneylender. Oftentimes the interest was so
high that the loan would continue from generation to generation. This was one
of the most common and one of the heaviest burdens Indians at that time were
forced to bear. In order to relieve the situation, the government of Punjab had
begun to sponsor cooperative banks for the use of the villagers. One of my
former college friends was in charge of this program in my part of the
country. I consulted with him and agreed to bring several leading citizens from
my village to a meeting at his headquarters in the city of Tarn Taran, ten
miles away. The meeting was most successful and we returned home and I was able
to help organize two cooperative banks in my village. When I went back to India
in 1957 I was delighted to learn that both of those banks were still operating.

But while I busied myself with these activities my thoughts were still
on America. I had made up my mind to leave, and my family had finally agreed. I
told them it was my intention to learn food canning with the hope of starting a
canning industry in India, with the emphasis on the canning of mangoes. So I
assured my family that I would study in the United States for at least two and
not more than three years, and would then return home.